Data Integrations
Beyond the Add Data menu, Meratyn connects to several hosted catalogs and imagery providers through dedicated panels and plugins. This page is a map of what is available and where to find it.
Cloud catalogs
| Integration | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Planetary Computer | Processing menu | Browse and load STAC data from Microsoft Planetary Computer (Sentinel, Landsat, GeoParquet, and more). |
| Earth Engine | Processing menu | Browse and load Google Earth Engine datasets after authenticating. |
| Overture Maps | Plugins menu | Load Overture Maps data themes (such as buildings, places, and transportation). |
| STAC URL / COG | Add Data → Web services | Open a specific STAC catalog or API URL and add the selected COG asset as a raster layer. See Adding Data. |
Credentials Earth Engine requires authentication, and some providers expect an API key or token. Set these in Settings → Environment Variables. See Settings & Preferences.
Web Services plugins
Activate these built-ins from Plugins → Web Services. The first fourteen providers below use public, anonymous catalogs. Hugging Face and GeoLens can also connect with user-supplied credentials.
| Service | What it does |
|---|---|
| FEMA NFHL | Browse National Flood Hazard Layer services and add flood-risk map layers. |
| NASA Earthdata | Browse NASA GIBS Earth-observation layers, including time-aware imagery, and add them as map layers. |
| US EPA EnviroAtlas | Browse environmental and ecosystem services and add selected layers. |
| USGS National Map | Browse National Map reference services and add topographic or geographic layers. |
| Vantor Open Data | Search public event scenes by phase or map extent and add COG imagery from the STAC results. |
| Planet Open Data | Open the public Planet disaster STAC catalog, search collections and items, and add supported assets. |
| Earthdata GIS | Search NASA’s public GIS catalog and add supported ArcGIS map resources. |
| OpenAerialMap | Search open aerial imagery by the current view, a drawn box, or coordinates, then add selected imagery. |
| ArcGIS Hub | Search public Feature Service, GeoJSON, CSV, Shapefile, KML, and File Geodatabase datasets; add supported Feature Service or GeoJSON records, or open their public download. |
| Socrata | Search bounded public Socrata catalogs and add supported GeoJSON resources. |
| CKAN | Search the public Humanitarian Data Exchange catalog and add supported GeoJSON resources. |
| STAC Catalogs | Discover catalogs from STAC Index, search collections and items, and add supported assets. This is separate from the URL-based STAC / COG loader. |
| Source Cooperative | Search open geospatial products, browse their files, and either stream supported cloud formats or add a bounded copy. |
| Natural Earth | Open the curated Natural Earth product in Source Cooperative for streaming, adding, or downloading supported files. |
| Hugging Face | Browse public dataset repositories and add supported files. A token also enables private listings, repository creation, and uploads when its permissions allow. |
| GeoLens | Connect to a GeoLens deployment, search vector and raster datasets, add tiles or bounded GeoJSON, and edit features when the connected account is allowed. |
Hugging Face stores a token only in this browser profile when you explicitly save it; it is never written to a Meratyn project. GeoLens keeps its API key in memory only. After a reload, project reopen, or plugin restart, reconnect to restore access to protected GeoLens layers. Public providers do not require Meratyn to store credentials in the project.
Online Layers is a separate Meratyn service for publishing local files and reopening shared or saved layers. Public links can be opened anonymously; private catalogs use the Meratyn connection configured in the app, never credentials embedded in a share URL or project source.
Imagery and street-level
| Integration | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Historical Imagery | Plugins menu | Browse historical Esri World Imagery snapshots. |
| Street View | Plugins menu | View Google Street View and Mapillary street-level imagery. Needs provider credentials (see Data Integrations). |
Time series and comparison
| Plugin | What it does |
|---|---|
| Time Slider | Animate time series raster and vector data (COG, XYZ/WMTS, WMS-Time, and time-filtered GeoJSON) through a docked timeline. |
| Layer Swipe | Compare two layers side by side with a swipe handle. Saved assignments use stable Meratyn layer IDs; when a project reopens, Meratyn resolves each assignment to its rendered companion style layers, leaves not-yet-rendered IDs pending, and does not include sibling source layers that merely share a source name. |
AI analysis
| Plugin | What it does |
|---|---|
| GeoAgent | AI-assisted geospatial analysis. |
| SamGeo | Opens the interactive segmentation panel. Text, foreground/background points, and bounding boxes use SAM 3; Automatic (everything) uses the SAM 2 mask generator. Model IDs, backend, and mask thresholds are configurable. |
All of these are activated from the Plugins menu, where you can also set their on-map position.
Geocoding
Meratyn can turn addresses into points and points into addresses. Both run through a selectable provider; the public Nominatim service is the default and needs no key. The Colombian option is a separate forward place-name search and does not provide address or reverse geocoding.
| Tool | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Geocode Addresses | Processing menu | Pick a CSV with an address column and geocode each row into a point layer. Each matched row keeps its original columns plus geocode_lat, geocode_lon, geocode_display_name, and geocode_importance (a match score). A per-run provider picker lets you switch backend for that batch. |
| Reverse Geocode | Map menu | A toggle. While on, click anywhere on the map to look up the address at that point, shown in a popup with a copy button. |
Both send coordinates or addresses to a third-party service, so the first time you enable Reverse Geocode (and whenever you run a batch) your data leaves your device for those requests. Reverse Geocode shows a one-time notice before it is first enabled.
Providers
Choose a backend in Settings → Geocoding. The selection, per-provider API keys, optional endpoint overrides, and contact email are saved with the project.
| Provider | API key | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Nominatim (OpenStreetMap) | No | Default. Public endpoint is paced and row-capped (see below); point it at a self-hosted instance to relax both. |
| IGAC Geographic Names (Colombia) | No | Credential-free forward search for Colombian places and geographic features through the public IGAC Geographic Names service. It is not an address locator and does not support reverse lookup. |
| Pelias | Optional | Hosted geocode.earth needs a key; a self-hosted Pelias does not. |
| ArcGIS World Geocoder | Yes | Esri token / API key. |
| Mapbox | Yes | Mapbox access token (pk.…). |
| Yes | Google Maps Geocoding API key. Google does not officially allow browser cross-origin requests to this API, so a same-origin proxy may be required. |
API keys are stored in plain text in the .meratyn.json project file, so avoid sharing a project that carries them (the Project → Share flow can strip environment variables, but provider keys live under Geocoding settings).
Usage policy and limits
Requests to the public Nominatim endpoint are paced to one per second and a single batch run is capped at 1000 rows, in line with the Nominatim usage policy. Browsers cannot set a User-Agent, so the app identifies itself through the page Referer and the optional email parameter.
The IGAC Geographic Names provider validates returned coordinates as WGS84 and spaces requests by roughly 200 ms. It is a public place-name service, not an address locator; the official Colombian address API requires separately requested access. Unmatched queries return no result.
Self-hosted Nominatim and the keyed providers (Mapbox, ArcGIS, Google, hosted Pelias) are not paced or capped by Meratyn; their own quotas apply.